Urban Camping - It's All the Rage!

Last weekend I took my first test of the second year of medical school. It was a tough 2 weeks of Pharmacological madness, but my brain held onto some of the millions of drug names and I did pretty well. That evening, we had planned a camp out for my young men. We originally had planned to go to Pocahontas State Park, but when I called to reserve our campsite a few days before, I found out that there was a 6 person limit per campsite. We were going to have 8 people, so we needed 2 sites. Total cost - $63. To camp. I couldn't believe it.

Basically, if we chose to go, we would wipe our budget completely & it's only August. So, I came up with a great solution. We camped out in my backyard.





We dug a fire pit & had a fire building contest. Brother Sykes was the team leader for Eric & Tay and Brother Rainey was the team leader for Raul & Yusu. Raul & Yusu went first & went for almost 5 minutes with the flint & steel with no success. They tried again for another 5 minutes with a lot of matches & were still unsuccessful. (I will mention that we had a large rainstorm the night before & it was difficult finding dry wood).

Team Sykes then took the stage & Tay basically stepped up & showed us all he is a professional outdoors-man. 2 minutes & 38 seconds & the string above the pit was burnt. Pretty impressive Tay.

We made Tin-Foil dinners after getting the fire made & the boys all made their own. It started to rain as we were wrapping up, so we just headed inside for a Rock Band session! My favorite part about it all is how everyone sings along.



We then made some smores on the stove top, since the rain had soaked our campfire & wood. It was nice to enjoy the comforts of the indoors. I was going to take a picture of Raul cooking his Mallow, when it erupted in flames! I guess according to the Sandlot, he cooked it just right. Then SCARF!




The next morning the boys cooked waffles, eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast, & it was a good breakfast. We then headed out to our favorite Pony Pastures for a float down the rapids.



I have to give Yusu & Eric some credit because they both admitted to not being very good swimmers, but still dared to ride down the rapids. Luckily Tay was a strong swimmer & ready to catch them. This next picture is my favorite. You can see our safety chain to catch Eric as he sits up above the rapid deciding whether or not to go.


What a blast we had with these guys! Thanks to my counselors for the help!